Guthrie’s Edinburgh

There are currently two paintings of Dr Thomas Guthrie hanging in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.  The first painting on display was originally entitled ‘Dr Guthrie on a Mission of Mercy’.  It is of Guthrie standing at the top of the Lawnmarket with St Giles clearly in the background.  Having just re-read Guthrie’s ‘Seed Time and Harvest – A Plea for Ragged Schools’ the painting doesn’t quite capture the harrowing scenes of emaciated children that Guthrie describes.  It does, however capture Guthrie’s tenderness for the thousands of ‘ragged children’ who were victims of the extreme poverty, lack of access to education and general abuse by addicted or absent parents.  Guthrie conservatively estimated the figure of ragged children in Edinburgh to be around 1000 in the mid 1840’s although the figure could well have been twice that.

 

The inscription reads; ‘The influential churchman and social reformer Thomas Guthrie was born in Brechin in Angus. He helped found the Free Church of Scotland in 1843. Guthrie was also an outspoken supporter of education for all and a passionate opponent of alcohol abuse. Guthrie took up fishing in order to spend time outdoors. Whilst at his Highland retreat at Lochlee, he practised trout fishing and was often found on the loch: ‘We are all fishing daft here. My brother Patrick says that between us all together he cannot get a word of rational conversation; nothing but “trouts, baits, hooks, bobs, drags, flies, dressings, hackle and tackle.”’ This oil sketch depicts a father at leisure with his children but also alludes to Guthrie’s profession as a ‘fisher of men’.’  The painter was Sir George Harvey (1806 – 1876); ‘Harvey is best known for his Scottish history painting and contemporary narrative scenes. Many of his subjects, designed to invite an emotional response, appear rather sentimental to modern viewers but were extremely popular when first exhibited.’